Cape Byron Light House.
Bay, NSW, Australia
(taken during the Byron Bay Writers Festival in July 2008)
So attached to my writing area, our 16 year old cat Keats, has his own blanket at the rear of my computer now to avoid wars over space. Now that it is coming into winter and cooler weather for Brisbane, he positions himself near the computer exhaust to bask in the hot air that comes out. There's no flies on him!
Our birth photographer Gemma-Rose Turnball has an album on her website called 'Bird Watching.' I remembered that it had pictures that made the ordinary look extraordinary (there's even a photo from my birth in this album!)
I got to thinking about 'bird watching' and what the same type of thing might mean for me as a writer. The inspiration was going along to Dylan's kindy disco on Friday night. It's was a weird juxtaposition - flashing lights and music, the closeness created in a room by the heat of too many bodies and not enough fresh air ... that drag you back to times and places long ago, memories that surface without bidding. Memories that are interupted by a tug on your hand, a strain of the chicken dance music or the mad squeals of a group of kids chasing each other over a grassy knoll. All quite strange.
But the aspect of the whole night that got me, and got me thinking about Gemma's take on 'bird watching' was coming across one particular Dad on the sidelines. He was much taller than me, well over six foot tall, with dark brown hair, messily curling (the way hair does when its outgrown its original cut). He had a good three day growth on his face. He looked rugged, but this wasn't the first thing that caught my eye, in fact it was the last. What originally caught my eye was the black patent leather bag under one arm and the bright pink my little pony being held in the other. The three aspects, rugged looking man, black hand bag and pink stuffed pony should not have been in the same sentence, let along the same space in time, it should not have worked would not have worked in any other place other than a kindy disco.
The last thing that amazed me was how at ease he was, it was if he was oblivious to the fact of what he was actually holding. He could well have been holding a beer, he was that comfortable.
It was the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Yet it almost became my biggest fauxpas. I immediately had to go out and tell someone what I had seen - Dave wasn't with us. The first person I found was another Mum from Dylan's class that I sort of know. I started to gush it out, and then put a disclaimer on it, "Oh I had better be careful, it may have been your husand,' before I embarked once more upon my description. And you betcha .. it was this lady's huband (of the 50 or so families that were there!) But she took it in her stride, she probably took it as a compliment - not to mention that I'm sure she would have been happy to have offloaded her two kids, her hand bag and the my little pony onto him. I know I would have been.
Looking for the extraordinary in the ordinary keeps life exciting, it throws up all manner of possibilities that we're closed to if we wandered through life blinkered by any sense of monotony. The challenge - to go out and bird watch, to scrutinse "for subtle detail in size, shape, plummage and behaviour" and tell us all what you see.
Marakoopa Caves - Western Tasmania Trusting this slow and seemingly randow drip, we will be startled one day by the flash of "Oh! That's it."
Clicking on the actual photos will blow them up to the size of your whole screen - in case your particularly curious!
Just when you thought that too much Andy Warhol was not enough ... yes Annie and I were back at GoMA again this morning - with our tiny tribe of kids in tow..
We all had an absolute ball in the Silver Factory section of the Gallery that is especially set up for kids. They got to go in the 'Silver Clouds' installation (and wasn't that a trippy moment for me when I stopped paying attention to the three kids for a moment and uttering "Be gentle" in every other breathe - and looked up to see a multitude of silver pillow floating in the ai above me!), as you can see above - had their photos take a la Warhol style in a specially designed photo booth (then we picked the colours and emailed them home!), stacked Brillo, Campbells Soup and Heinz sauce bottles and then had fifteen seconds of fame where the kids sat on a seat and were filmed, then cast up on the wall old movie style with the count down numbers and all. It was brilliant ... oh and we got some temporary tattoes as well. Who could ask for more.
PS: Dave has just pointed out to me that Lilly, Morgan and Dylan need to form a band in 20 years time and use this photo as their first album cover!!
My brownies are famous through Brisbane - mainly thanks to the word of mouth of my friends. Here is Dylan agreeing whole heartedly about this time last year I'm guessing. He still hasn't developed that zero-ing in instinct for licking the bowl - but I am sure he will soon.
This was taken by my best friends Karen van Harskamp and Lisa Jane Grenfell when I was 27 weeks pregnant. I'm not sure who gets photographic credit for this one, so I've mentioned both Karen and Lisa. I've also cropped the bare breasts out of the photograph so as not to offend anyone.
We all loved the way this small candle cast shadows of flowers on my blossoming belly.
(Photographic recognition to my three year old who took this on my phone camera and seems to have a wonderful eye for the abstract)
Something absolutely unheard of is currently happening in my home. It's quiet ... and I'm the only one awake. The only thing to hear is the gentle breeze caressing the palms outside my window and the tap tap tapping of the keyboard as a right this. There are few moments in my life these days when there is really nothing urgent requiring my immediate attention. Yeah - my magazine is still unfinished and about to miss yet another deadline, but in this moment, I don't have to worry too much about it.
It's been a bit of a whirlwind week. Dylan has been ill (thus the reason that he is asleep in the middle of the day!) all week, not enough to be really sick, but enough to be clingy, low on energy and just not himself ... but not sick enough to need to stay home and miss out on playing with his friends! It's a fine line. Tuesday I got a call to arms to assist with organising the Brisbane contribution to the Janie Nottingham's rally at Parliament House tomorrow. I hate using the phone, and the idea of ringing and speaking to politicians, either elected or would-bes wasn't my cup of tea ... so I got the grand job of doing the press release for Queensland. At least I was putting my writing to good use. It also helped to solidify more things about birth in my mind and my understanding of it. Hopefully over the weekend I will be able to bring them all together into an article.
Right now - I have to go and attend to an email program that doesn't want to play ball ... grrr ... as I'm due to leave for the airport in quarter of an hour to pick up a friend from Cairns. Well the moment was enjoyed ... if even it was just a moment!
Dylan Llewellyn James Harris
